To be sick of seeing people smoking by no smoking signs by hospital entrances

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Usually one of these is an in-patient - in hospital gown, PJs or dressing gown. Plus has at least one of these a drip attached on a drip castor holder, catheter on a stand or on show and a nasal cannula around neck. They look very pale and weak whilst using what energy they have to clutch a cig in their hands.

Then see hospital staff. Both medical staff in uniform and other staff in normal clothes. Know that they are staff by lanyards, ID passes.

The former are probably in hospital due to smoking. The latter should lead a better example by walking outside the grounds to smoke.

Do you think the NHS and their trusts should do something about this?

Doubt they have the time or resources.

Sad, pathetic people who can’t even go a few yards further from the entrance.

I have been thinking this recently as have been attending hospital more than usual due to pregnancy, I honestly don’t know why they even bother having the no smoking signs when both staff and patients are stood right beside them daily smoking.

At the children’s hospital in my city you aren’t allowed to smoke anywhere near the buildings and there are a lots of signs saying don’t smoke here it’s very upsetting to the children and it seems to work - I’ve never seen anyone vaping / smoking anywhere near the hospital buildings/grounds

Yes !! I got discharged from hospital last winter with pneumonia and pleurisy and had to walk through a thick cloud of cigarette smoke - nearly ended straight back inside!

I was at a small private hospital recently and there were signs everywhere saying “no smoking on the grounds” and I saw it being enforced twice. They seemed to take it very seriously

Is this at a hospital you work at if you are seeing people that often report it to your hospitals trust, there is supposed to be a radius around nhs buildings where people are not permitted to smoke, staff should know this, patients who smoke don"t have much scope to go elsewhere but should move from the enterance.

Right beside you say?

Every day my bus to work stops outside a hospital and out of the bus window I see patients/visitors outside the main entrance puffing away, and if I look out of the window the other side I see a smoking shelter with hospital staff smoking and clutching vapes for dear life.

Also, when the bus stops at a depot to change drivers I see a bunch of bus drivers all puffing away.

Pisses me off so much, yet it really doesn't affect my life at all.

When my dad was in hospital, I was disgusted by having to walk daily through a crowd of smokers by the main entrance. They were all patients too.

I looked up the policy and noted that smoking has been banned on the hospital grounds since 2006 🤔 Bit pointless really as they clearly can’t or won’t enforce this, and I’m not sure how they could.

It wasn’t outside of the entrance but I once smoked outside of a no smoking sign near the hospital car park with a burns patient, an orthopaedic surgeon and an off duty police officer as a teen. Hospitals are stressful for everyone, I don’t think it’s that deep as long as you’re being respectful of other people’s space.

I much preferred going abroad and seeing outdoor smoking areas, much nicer, kept clean and private as not to disturb anyone else- I had quit by then though.

Our local hospital is a smoke free site. There are signs everywhere. People can’t even be arsed to take 3 steps to at least come out of the canopy covering the front doors. It’s a cloud of smoke and vape. Vile. All from the people OP describes. I was recently in with my baby, have spent 4 years in and out with my eldest for respiratory issues. Everytime having to carry her through the cloud.

Its quite incredible that they are right beside the signs, I see this all the time, including where I work which is a public building but not NHS, people have complained and escalated and nothing happens

I’ve seen this quite frequently at a major London teaching hospital. I’ve raised the issue with the enquiry desk and they sympathise but say it isn’t possible to police the area 24/7.

Yep.

At our hospital these signs are mainly on the wall to the side of the entrances to the buildings, and then on the wall of the little hut things where you pay for parking- every time we have been for my last pregnancy & this one without fail there is at least one person stood right infront of a sign with a cig in hand.

A time when you are undergoing the stress of a medical procedure or looking after a loved one who is unwell is not a good time to give up smoking. Hospitals should have a dedicated smoking area for those who need it. It's unrealistic to think people who are addicted will simply stop smoking while they are in hospital.

Too many policies and procedures - relating to all kinds of things - are designed for some utopia where everyone behaves perfectly and sensibly, rather than being designed for the world we actually live in.

The hospital I used to work at, had an unofficial smoking area just where their site abutted Sainsbury's (due to pushing the smokers away from the actual entrance). Drove Sainsbury's bonkers!

Like it or not, these people are all addicted and will smoke somewhere.

You mean a world where people dont want to be assaulted by fag smoke as they are also ill or stressed?

Its anti social, unhealthy and can be dangerous to others, so no you dont get a right to do this.

Read my post - I said that hospitals need a smoking area. They would therefore only be 'assaulting' one another - not non-smokers.

Husband and I always say that smokers must be illiterate as we see this so often as well.

I completely agree, nobody is realistically walking outside of the hospital grounds to smoke, including staff. Hospital smoking areas abroad make it more pleasant for everyone.

We need covered, seated smoking shelter close to the entrances. Realistically people are going to smoke, especially in times of crises, it needs to be planned for. Not carry out your addiction is going make you feel worse and the hospital staff can't deal with that, on top of whatever else is going on. In the new Liverpool Royal the only covered spot is the lift, so you can't use the lift without going through thick smoke. There was room for a shelter, so there should be one.

I agee smoking is horrible and anti social but if people had an area to go they would use it. Our local buses go into our hospital and i see people smoking away from the doors there seems to be an unofficial smoking area that nobody needs to walk through.

I was in hospital a few years ago and one of the healthcare assistants used to actively encourage a patient to go down for a smoke and guess what the health care assistant had a cigarette too.

There should be dedicated smoking shelters by the entrances. This will solve both issues - the smokers are able to smoke and the non-smokers can avoid them (and the smoke) with ease.

Being in hospital and indeed working in such an environment can be horrendously upsetting and stressful at times - this is generally not the time for someone with a chronic addiction to stop cold turkey.

I haven't smoked for 15 years, but whenever I'm under significant stress my goodness I could use a cigarette. I won't, but the craving never really goes away.

I worked in a hospital around the time that smoking rooms were being phased out. The smoke from the rooms would leach out around the surrounding corridor areas. Apparently the walls in them were a yellow ochre colour. Yellow ochre was not a colour in the hospital's pallette!

Closing them just shunted the smokers to the exits and hunkering under the canopies. Frustrating when you have to walk through their fug umpteen times a day. I used to take a breath and hold it until I reached fresh air again.

Setting up shelters out of the way doesn't work because of human laziness, even without the complication of patients being too frail to go the extra distance.

I don't think there is a realistic solution. The environment for smoking has been fairly hostile in the past 20+ years yet people have still taken on the expense and stigma of the habit. It's not just pre-existing addicts hanging on from when it was affordable and accepted. I don't think you get the chain smokers that were common at one time. I remember loitering in the cardiac waiting room after my dad's first heart attack reading leaflets about people smoking 60-100 a day. That will have dwindled as workplaces introduced restrictions.

I'll admit to being anti-smoking. It's a normal reaction to growing up in a smoke-filled house where it contributed towards my dad's premature death, and I regularly had ear infections, breathing difficulties including stubborn coughs and inflamatory issues such as eczema. Funnily, all ceased to be an issue again within a year of living smoke-free when I left home.